Thread by @zhao_dashuai

I have been cleared by my superiors to post this🧵
There has indeed been a failed coup attempt in China

I work at the Propaganda Department of the Ministry of State Security

Forgive me for hiding my identity, it's too politically sensitive
#chinacoup
#China
#XiJinping

A few months ago my friend who works at the Logistic Support Department of the CMC, have started noticing odd requests from the Northern Theatre Command

They were requesting for type O- blood, this request should only be placed before a major military operation

So he jumped on our internal Wechat group and he started casually asking me if I've heard anything

We used voice chat, and put on our thickest local dialect to get around discipline officers monitoring the group

I of course have not heard anything, since I only deal with foreign relations and no classified staff

However, my dad did notice something odd

During a dinner gathering, his old army pal from Northern Theater Command, talked about how the PLA must be more active in politics

He waived it off as drunken table talk

We had a great time, my dad's army pal and I talked in depth about my interests, including Vexillology

Vexillology is the study of flags and symbolism, I've stayed in touch with my dad's army pal

Few weeks ago, he had asked me to reinterpret the Chinese flag, based on my understanding of Chinese Socialism in the New Era

So I came up with this design, which emphasized on harmony through the usage of round typologies

I also gave nod to the Army aesthetic by using the vertical orientation of the 5 stars

He was ecstatic, and asked my permission to use it for his unit as an informal patch

Yesterday, to my absolute horror, I found out that the vehicles in the coup convoy had spray-painted my design as a form of identification

The entire propaganda apparatus went into overdrive trying to deny the existence of a coup by flooding coup related #, myself included